FMI Space Weather Activities

by Tiera Laitinen, Ari Viljanen, Minna Palmroth, Eija Tanskanen, Kirsti Kauristie, Pekka Janhunen

The Finnish Meteorological Institute (FMI) has long experience in space weather monitoring and research. Their space weather related services include:

• Administering the Nordic magnetometer network IMAGE and maintaining its magnetometer stations in Finland, production of geomagnetic activity indices.
• Maintaining all-sky cameras for auroral imaging in Finland and in Svalbard.
• Aurora nowcasting and real-time imagery via the web portal Auroras Now.
• Warnings on extreme space weather events to Finnish authorities through the LUOVA natural hazards warning system.
• On trial stage: daily space weather reports on the FMI web portal.

Their specialities in space weather research also include:

• Modelling geomagnetically induced currents.
• Auroral occurrence, e.g. Regional Auroral Forecast (ESA SSA project).
• Long-term evolution of solar activity and solar storm effects to the magnetosphere and atmosphere.
• Magnetospheric simulations, including the global MHD simulation GUMICS (with a new real time capable version), the vlasov simulation Vlasiator, and the hybrid code HYB for weakly magnetised bodies.
• Developing the electric solar wind sail (e-sail) for harnessing solar wind thrust.

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